KiWi: A Key-Value Map for Scalable Real-Time Analytics

Abstract

Modern big data processing platforms employ huge in-memory key-value (KV) maps. Their applications simultaneously drive high-rate data ingestion and large-scale analytics. These two scenarios expect KV-map implementations that scale well with both real-time updates and large atomic scans triggered by range queries. We present KiWi, the first atomic KV-map to efficiently support simultaneous large scans and real-time access. The key to achieving this is treating scans as first class citizens, and organizing the data structure around them. KiWi provides wait-free scans, whereas its put operations are lightweight and lock-free. It optimizes memory management jointly with data structure access.We implement KiWi and compare it to state-of-the-art solutions. Compared to other KV-maps providing atomic scans, KiWi performs either long scans or concurrent puts an order of magnitude faster. Its scans are twice as fast as non-atomic ones implemented via iterators in the Java skiplist.